


An Open Letter To My Friend Who Will Not Be Reading Mister Impossible

by thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes



Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Letter, Nonfiction, Rant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27503437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes/pseuds/thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes
Summary: The name of the new Dreamer Trilogy Novel is Mister Impossible and I have thoughts.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	An Open Letter To My Friend Who Will Not Be Reading Mister Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> None of this is meant to be disrespectful, I just had a lot of feelings about how people reacted to the book title and I wanted to publish them somewhere.

Dear friend,

Okay, listen.

I am not going to sit here and pretend like I thought the name of the book was going to be _Mister Impossible_ . This was truly an unpredictable move. _However_ , I'm not going to pretend like I don't absolutely love it. And I'm not just gonna be quiet about how genius a move it was.

So I wanna explore why people are kind of having trouble with this. I mean, looking through tumblr the consensus seems to be that the title is kind of stupid. It sounds like a bad spy movie/low budget action thriller. It's "off brand" for Stiefvater. 

To be fair, all of these things are correct. I'm not going to say that the title is secretly really deep or that it holds a quiet inner poetry, because that’s not the message I’m interested in delivering. What I am going to say is that it’s not a bad title for the book.

First off, I just think it’s really funny when people criticize the title for being based on a song when they spend as much time as they do on AO3. (I listened to the song actually, it wasn’t my thing but it definitely fits the dreamer trilogy vibe, someone’s gonna make a killer animatic to it, I can’t wait!)

The reason that _Mister Impossible_ is a good title is _because_ it's goofy and immature, because you know who else is goofy and immature? Ronan Lynch, a man who named his pet bird Chainsaw. You know what's goofy and immature? The Dreamer Trilogy in general, in which Matthew dresses like a fuckboy and Hennessey delivers dramatic one-liners and then passes out. I thought we were all aware of that going into this. We're reading a series about the clowniest member of the Gangsey and we expected what, a Keats quote? People say the title sounds like a middle school action book derisively, like that's not exactly how Ronan Lynch sees his life. 

Like, aww :( was the title of a book about the man who created the ORBMASTER not serious and poetic enough for you? Did somebody want Ronan Lynch, Clown Supreme's solo adventures to all be introspective and tender? Tough shit Northrop Frye, sometimes you get a campy title and you learn to love it.

Also, I'm disappointed more people aren't into how campy this title is. I thought campy stuff was back to being recognized as cool and enjoyable. Must a title be eloquent and lyrical? Is it not enough to be apt, and, you know, kind of lighthearted? When did having a wacky, fun title become a bad thing?

And it _is_ a fun title. All the jokes about how ridiculous it was were really funny! It's funny, whether you're laughing with it or at it. There's a little bit of a mystery (get it? a mister-y? That's awful, ignore that.) there. Who is Mister Impossible? Is it Bryde? Is it Ronan. Who came up with it? Probably Ronan, but I saw some interesting theories about how it could be a nickname Declan or Adam gave to Ronan. It's really fun to speculate!

Another problem people had was with the tone shift from _Call Down The Hawk_ to _Mister Impossible_ , and to that I say, thus is the duality of Ronan Lynch. He waxes poetic about his big gay crush, yeah, but he also threw Noah out of a window and high-fived Blue for getting suspended. The guy is three dimensional. He contains multitudes.

Also, elephant in the room, THIS is the thing we're all criticizing Stiefvater for? Because a book she wrote has a ridiculous title? We're just going to all pretend that Henry Cheng and the house full of asians wasn't a thing? I’m not saying you can’t criticize her for both things, I’m just saying I don’t remember this amount of backlash when _The Raven King_ came out. 

Honestly, I’m having trouble understanding the vitriol behind the hate. There are a lot of valid criticisms, most of which I agree with, but are people seriously not going to read the book because of the title? I’m sorry you think you’re too cool to let yourself read a book called _Mister Impossible_ , but from where I’m standing, it’s kind of weak to let a “cringe” title stop you from what’s possibly going to be a very exciting book.

I think that's what's bothering me the most here. I understand that some people don't want to read books that were written for edgy middle schoolers, but they know that this book wasn't written for edgy middle schoolers, it's part of a series they like. That means the issue here isn't that they don't want to read an edgy middle schooler book, but that they don't want to be seen reading what looks like an edgy middle schooler book. This is the part of the letter where it stops being about _Mister Impossible_ for a little bit because I’m incapable of writing anything that doesn’t go off on a tangent.

Stick with me, I'm going somewhere with this. Growing up, I was super into musical theater. I learned a whole lot about stage acting and exaggeration and how not to be embarrassed when you're doing embarrassing things. I think I have a bit of a distorted view of what exactly cringy things are, so I might not be the best person to write this letter empathetically, but that's not the point of the anecdote. 

The point is, I've been in/seen a lot of musicals. And you know what? A lot of my favorite musicals are stupid as hell. I mean sure, there are a lot of really deep introspective ones, but at the end of a long day, I'm not going to turn to _Les Miserables_ for comfort, I'm going to watch _Legally Blonde_ , or _She Loves Me_ , or _Mamma Mia_ . Because yeah, they're frivolous and shallow and they take themselves a little too seriously, but if you turn the "I shouldn’t enjoy this, I'm a person of culture, of _taste_ " part of your brain off, you realize that those musicals are joyous! And fun! And people like them because they feel good when they watch them! And maybe if you let go of the notion that you're too good to enjoy stupid, campy things, you'd enjoy your life a lot more.

But I digress. Yeah. Anyway, can't wait for this book to either kick my teeth in with a tonal misdirect, or be so problematic that I regret ever coming to its defense.

In summation, the title of this book is juvenile and goofy, but when did we decide that those were bad things for a book title to be?

With all my love,

Thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes

P.s. None of this is meant to defend Maggie Stiefvater by the way, I’m not trying to deify her or anything. It is a dumb title and that is her doing. I just happen to like the dumb title very much.

**Author's Note:**

> I was kind of mean in this so feel free to bully me in the comments.  
> Points to touch on:  
> 1\. I was a theater kid growing up, lots of material there.  
> 2\. I'm very clumsy, embarrassingly so. I trip up the stairs so often.  
> 3\. I have a super inflated ego with 0 foundation for it.  
> 4\. I write fanfiction.  
> 5\. There are almost certainly spelling/grammar issues in this thing somewhere.


End file.
